How to create a content plan for your blog in 2024 (plus FREE 2024 Blog Content Planner!)
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Imagine starting 2024 with your blog content all mapped out – knowing that you are going to fulfil your goals, never be stuck for ideas and never again miss seasonal opportunities! In this blog post I show you exactly how to do all that by creating a blog content plan for 2024. (Plus get your hands on my FREE 2024 Blog Content Planner!)
How was 2023 for you? Did you achieve everything you planned? Did your blog grow as much as you had hoped? Did you make as much money as you wanted to?
One of the key things which separates those who can say YES to those things and those who say NO is PLANNING – both generally planning what goals you want to crush in the next year, but also at a more specific level – planning the content you intend to publish on your blog week in, week out.
For a lot of bloggers, content planning doesn’t really happen. Content ideas are thought of on the fly and turned into blog posts haphazardly. Some things work well, somethings don’t – but there’s no real purpose to any given blog post… other than to ensure that another blog post gets churned out.
This method is totally fine if your blog is just a fun hobby, but if your blog is your business, or you WANT you blog to be your business then you need to start treating your blog like a business and being a business means PLANNING.
Before I started blogging, I worked for a number of businesses – everything from a giant multinational engineering firm, through to a national luxury supermarket, a national online wine retailer and right down to a small English language school and a micro business recruiting nurses to private hospitals.
All of these businesses were different, but all of them spent a good deal of time on planning. If you are running your blog as a business and want it to be a SUCCESSFUL business, planning is NOT OPTIONAL!
Last week I shared my tips and advice on Goal setting for bloggers in 2024, showing how to set goals and create action plans for 2024. This week I am turning my planning attentions to specifically how to create a content plan for your blog in 2024.
Why create a blog content plan for 2024?
It’s motivational
Creating a blog content plan is not supposed to be some dry exercise designed to take the joy out of blogging – quite the contrary! In fact, if you follow the steps below and create a content plan for your blog in 2024, I can pretty much guarantee you will end the task more fired up and excited for 2024!
To serve your target audience
A blog is no good if no one reads it! But if you don’t consider the needs of your audience and write content that they are actually going to be interested in reading, no one will want to read your blog!
All too often bloggers write what THEY want to write, NOT what their target audience wants to read. By spending some time thinking about your audience and planning blog posts which you KNOW they will want to read, you are setting yourself up for a much more successful year in 2024!
To ensure you fulfil your blogging goals
Last week I shared how to set goals for your blog in 2024. A large part of fulfilling those goals will be writing the right content.
For example, if one of your goals in 2024 is to launch a product, you will need to create content that supports that launch – content which establishes your authority in that field, content which builds up excitement for that product, relevant opt-in offers to grow your email list and content which drives sales of that product.
Likewise, if your aim is to grow revenue from affiliate sales, you will need to create content which drives sales through your affiliate links.
And, if one of your main aims in 2024 is to grow your blog traffic and get into Mediavine and/or increase your ad income, you will need to focus on SEO. For example, doing careful keyword research, writing SEO friendly content and updating old blog posts.
It saves you time
Having a content calendar in place will save you a ton of time further down the line. There will be no more dithering about what to write about for your blog post each week. You will be able to crack on straight away. It will also mean you don’t have to create additional content on top of your usual workload because you suddenly realise you missed something out!
It’s good for SEO
Writing content which your audience truly wants to read, and which is the result of careful planning and keyword research, will also ensure your content performs better in search engine results – which means more traffic to your blog!
Read more >>> A beginner’s guide to SEO
It means you won’t miss out on seasonal opportunities
How many times have you thought about writing a post for a key seasonal event (Christmas / Thanksgiving / Easter / Valentine’s Day / Back to School) TOO LATE to take advantage of the season?
I’m writing this post in late November… a time when many bloggers are just beginning to think about creating some Christmas content – that’s WAY TOO LATE to take advantage of the seasonal bump from Google and Pinterest. It often takes a while for new content to take off. If you leave writing seasonal content until the last minute, the season will have passed before that content ever achieves its full potential!
Having a content plan for your blog means you won’t miss out on any of those key seasons in 2024!
It allows you to focus on your best ideas
Most of us bloggers suffer from the problem of FAR TOO MANY IDEAS! But not all those ideas are good ones, and by definition the vast majority won’t be THE BEST ideas. Spending time evaluating your ideas and choosing the best ones, will mean your blog will be full of your very best blog posts in 2024.
READ MORE >>> What to blog about: 27 blog post ideas (that will actually get results!)
Blog content planning shouldn’t be a straitjacket
One thing I hear quite a lot about blog content planning is that bloggers don’t want to do it because having a plan feels like a straitjacket. They feel that once they’ve written something down in their Blog Content Plan, they MUST do what’s on the plan and that takes away all the spontaneity.
I would argue the opposite. A plan is definitely NOT set in stone – more like the first draft of an essay, which you will improve upon throughout the year.
Throughout 2024 you can make changes and alterations to your plan as things change. But the plan is the starting point – and the reference point.
If you come up with a ‘new and better idea’ you can test this idea against the plan. What needs to come out to make room for that new and better idea? If it’s genuinely better, it will be easy to take something else out to make room for it.
Things to consider when planning your 2024 blog content
Before you get started on content planning for 2024, you need to consider several different factors:
Your audience
Who are they and what type of content do they want from you? What are their pain points? What are their problems? What content can you write that will help them with their problems?
Your analytics
Which posts are performing well and which posts are performing badly? Can you spot any trends? Can you write more content which is similar to your most popular posts?
For example, if your most popular posts are all recipes cooked in your slow cooker, can you write more slow cooker recipes? If your most popular content is all about how to use Instagram, can you write more posts about using Instagram?
Your goals
What are your goals for 2024 and what content will you need to write to fulfil them?
Relevant seasonal events
What are the key seasonal events which affect your blog? What content will you want to write about them?
Keyword research
It’s no good writing great blog posts if no one ever reads them! If you want people to read your blog, if you want to grow your blog traffic and if you want to achieve your other goals in 2024, you need to do good keyword research in order to ensure that you are writing blog posts on topics people are actually searching for AND where the competition isn’t so fierce that you stand no chance of being on page one for that search query.
How to create a blog content plan for 2024
Step 1: How many posts do you need to write in 2024?
The first thing you need to figure out is how many posts you need to write in 2024. So, for example, I publish a blog post on Productive Blogging once a week, so I need to create 52 blog posts in 2024.
If you want to create 2 posts per week, that’s 104 blog posts you’ll need to write in 2024. Or, if you only want to post once every other week, that’s just 26 blog posts for the whole of 2024!
You might also want to take into account vacations and other events which might prevent you from posting. I personally prefer to schedule out posts to go live when I’m away or on holiday, but I know many bloggers prefer to take a complete break.
So, for example, you might decide you want to post once a week, but you know you’re going to take all the school holidays off – so that’s just 39 blog posts you need to write in 2024!
Step 2: Create a blog content planner
The next step is to create a content calendar for 2024. This needn’t be anything fancy – a simple spreadsheet will do the job. Mark on it the dates you plan to publish blog posts and leave space to write the name of the blog post next to the date.
If that all sounds like far too much hard work, you are in luck! I have created a blank Blog Content Planner, based on the exact one I use to plan my content for Productive Blogging, which is free to download!
Full details of how to use this 2024 blog planner can be found in this post.
Step 3: Mark on fixed dates
Once you have created your blog content calendar, the next step is to mark on it the key fixed dates that you have to plan content for. For example:
- holidays – Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving etc.
- special days/weeks/months – Valentine’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day, Veganuary, organic month etc.
- product launches and other blog specific events
- other fixed events that are relevant to your particular blog – the end of the tax year, perhaps, or the start of the new school year
Step 4: Start with fixed date/seasonal content
You need to start by planning your fixed date/seasonal content. This content, by its very nature, needs to be planned first. All the other content will have to be slotted around these fixed dates.
Work out what fixed dates you have and work out how many blog posts you want to write for that date/event. So, for example, you might decide you want to create 4 blog posts for Christmas, 2 for Easter and 3 for your product launch in September.
Using the criteria in the things to take into account when planning your 2024 blog content section above, plan the content you want to create for those key seasonal events.
You don’t necessarily have to be too specific at this stage – just a general idea. You can focus on more specific planning later.
So, for example, if you have a food blog, your 4 Christmas posts could be – a turkey recipe, a sprouts recipe, a Christmas dessert recipe and a party nibbles recipe.
Or, if you have a home decor blog, your 2 Easter posts could be a general one about decorating your home for Easter and a more specific one about creating an Easter themed floral centrepiece.
And, if you are planning the launch of your Pinterest course in September, your 3 supporting blog posts could be a beginner’s guide to Pinterest, a 10 top tips for Pinterest post and a post about using Tailwind to schedule to Pinterest. Each of these posts could include a highly relevant opt-in offer designed to encourage people to subscribe to your email newsletter (and so filling your email list with exactly the right kind of people to buy your product when you launch it!).
Finally, you need to take these fixed date content plans and write them against the appropriate date on your content plan.
Step 5: Add in any other important content
Next, you need to consider any other important content you need to schedule into 2024. Sometimes we have content that we know is important to write but doesn’t have a fixed date.
For example, perhaps you have identified through your goal setting process for 2024 that you want to make more money from affiliate sales this year and to accomplish that goal you are planning to write 6 new posts in 2024 which each focus on encouraging readers to buy the product you recommend (and are an affiliate for). If this is the case, you should plan these 6 affiliate posts into your content plan first to ensure they get written!
Or perhaps you have identified that your blog needs more cornerstone content – perhaps you don’t have any at the moment and have identified that you would like to write 1 piece of cornerstone content for each of your 5 blog categories. Those should also go on your content calendar for 2024.
Step 6: Check if your categories are balanced
The next step is to check how balanced your categories are looking. Having a roughly similar number of blog posts in each category is good for SEO.
Take a look at each of your categories and add up how many posts you currently have in each category and how many posts you already have on your content calendar for 2024.
You are most likely to find a bit of an imbalance! But the good news is, by planning your content accordingly, you can correct that imbalance in 2024.
Step 7: Identify additional content needed
From your analysis of your categories in step 6, you can figure out how many additional blog posts you need to write for each category in order to have well balanced categories by the end of 2024.
So, let’s say you have a running blog with 5 categories – you might identify that in order to balance your categories you need to write only 3 more ‘race reports’ posts and 5 more ‘start running’ posts, but 10 more ‘training plans’ posts and 13 more ‘running kit’ posts.
Or with a food blog, you might discover you don’t need to write any more ‘main meals’ or ‘desserts’ posts, but you need to write 10 new ‘snacks’ posts, 5 new ‘starters’ posts and 7 new ‘breakfast’ posts.
Step 8: Brainstorm additional content
Write the name of each category on a blank piece of paper and the number of posts you need to write in 2024, then brainstorm ideas for blog posts for that category onto each sheet of paper.
Use the things to consider when planning your 2024 blog content section above to help you brainstorm: ideas that address your audience’s pain points, ideas similar to your current most popular posts, ideas related to your goals, etc.
Set a timer and give yourself 5 minutes for each category.
Once you have a page full of ideas for each category, use keyword research to help you pick out the BEST and MOST PROMISING topics for each category – selecting the correct number of ideas for each category.
Step 9: Fill in your content calendar
Now you have an idea for every blog post for 2024, it’s time to add those ideas into your Blog Content Planner for 2024. Try and slot in your content ideas in an order that makes sense and spread your blog posts out so your audience gets variety each week.
It will probably take a bit of jiggling about to get an order you are happy with. But once you have, you will have all your posts planned for THE WHOLE OF 2024 – woohoo!
I like to go one step further and colour code my spreadsheet, so I can see at a glance which blog posts are on which topic and where the key dates/events are.
Step 10: Use your content calendar!
Now you have a content calendar for 2024, it’s important to actually use it! Each week, when you come to write your blog post, you will already have your blog post title in your blog calendar ready to go – hoorah! No more spending hours staring into space, wondering what to write about. And no more starting drafts but never finishing them, either!
Having just ONE pre-determined topic to blog on each week will make you much MORE FOCUSED and PRODUCTIVE. And, as it is part of a well thought out blog content strategy, you KNOW each blog post is taking you ONE STEP CLOSER to achieving your goals!
Of course, from time to time, your blog plan will almost certainly change – perhaps you get a better idea, or land a sponsored post opportunity. In this case you can adjust your plan accordingly, rescheduling or deleting the planned blog post and adding in the new opportunity.
A content calendar is not supposed to restrict you, but support you, guide you and help you make wise choices when new opportunities arise.
Happy planning!
Over to you…
I would love to hear about how you plan your blog content or what some of your plans are for the year ahead! Let me know in the comments below – or head over to the Productive Blogging Facebook Community and share your plans with the group!
FREE Blog Planner for 2024
Want a ready-made content calendar for 2024? Then here you go! My 2024 Blog Content Planner will help you map out your 2024 content in a way that is easy to understand at a glance.
- How to plan your 2024 for maximum success
- What to blog about: 27 blog post ideas (that will actually get results!)
- Why every blog post should have a purpose (and how to decide what it is!)
- How to use cornerstone content to increase blog traffic
- How to write the perfect blog post (for search engines AND your readers)
Don’t miss a thing!
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Never mind getting fired up to create recipes. This has fired me up to create a content plan and get more organised – yay! Thanks Eb and keep these mega useful posts of yours coming.
I have a question regarding best time to post for seasonal events such as Christmas or Easter. I don’t really like posting Christmas content before December, but I’m guessing you’d advise otherwise?
Yay – that makes me so happy to hear, Choclette! I would definitely advise posting seasonal content ahead of time to make the most of the seasonal increase in Google and Pinterest activity. I actually start planning my Christmas content in August (to give myself plenty of time to take the photos in September and October) then I start getting it out onto my blog in November. I also make sure I start pinning all my Christmas content (old and new) in November. I then schedule social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) in so typically every Christmas post gets shared once towards the end of November and twice in December. If it’s relevant to Thanksgiving or Christmas baking (which people get into earlier) I’ll start even earlier. This year I’ve also been updating my old Christmas content too. To get the best out of each season you definitely want to be thinking ahead of the game – it gives you a distinct competitive advantage as most bloggers won’t be! Hope that helps 😀 Eb x
Good post! I liked the way how you correlated cooking and content planning. Helped me understand clearly!
You are welcome! I am so pleased you found this post helpful. Eb 🙂
Thanks for sharing such great ideas. They would definitely be helpful to a novice too. I want to redesign my blog content plan and wish to conduct survey to elicit exciting ideas and topics from my readers. I am looking out for a survey tool that would help me design surveys and is cost-effective. I have come across sogosurvey, survey monkey and survey gizmo. As I have never used online survey tools, I’m confused as to which tool would be effective. Can you help me out with this? It would be grateful.
The two survey tools I have seen work best for this kind of thing are Survey Monkey and Typeform. Both have free options. Typeform seems to be the favourite one among bloggers at the moment. Don’t forget you can also run polls on social media too! Eb 🙂
I’m looking forward to checking out your calendar. Thinking about your audience is a great way to come up with blog post ideas. I like to look at the types of questions people in my target audience ask. Some of the ways to do this are to look at the “People also ask” suggested search terms in Google or look at sites like Quora and Yahoo answers. Businesses may also want to blog about their FAQs.
Thanks Shella – yes I totally agree, looking at questions your audience are actually asking as a great way to come up with relevant content. Not only is this great for your readers, but also for SEO – as these are the things people are actually searching for! Eb 🙂
Thanks for these guidelines Eb! I desperately need them as I can’t seem to make a plan and stick to it. I mean, I make a schedule where I’d post 4 articles per month but then i miss on and get discouraged and give up.
It’s becoming a real problem as it gets me down when I fail and it obviously influences how I perform in other areas of this blogging/SEO journey.
Any advice?
A pleasure, Nikola. I’m glad you found them helpful. OK, so there are two bits of advice I can give you to help you post more consistently. The first is to ask yourself whether 4 articles per month is a realistic target. If not, maybe look to do 2 or 3 a month instead if you would find that more achievable. If you decide that 4 articles per month IS achieveable and it’s just motivation / willpower that’s letting you down, then my second piece of advice would be to break down article creation into smaller tasks and create a posting schedule that works for you. So, for example, let’s say you plan on publishing a new blog post every Friday. Well then, your schedule could look like this: Monday – research and write a plan. Tuesday – speed write a rough first draft (don’t allow yourself to do any editing!). Wednesday – edit the post and upload it into WordPress. Thursday – format the post, including headings, images, bullet points, etc. Friday – publish the post and share it on social media and with your email subscribers. In this way the task for each day is relatively small and manageable and so you are much more likely to be motivated to do it. I hope this helps! Eb 🙂
Incredibly helpful information to a newbie blogger like me! I’m 5 months in and have been working with a mentor/coach. My current goal is to learn SEO a bit and build a cornerstone post- your detailed suggestions on organizing content really helps! My niche is escaping the 9-5 and designing a lifestyle so the holiday stuff doesn’t always make sense; I’ve been trying to balance hitting “seasonal” content with speaking directly to my niche. I think having the cornerstone and implementing some of your ideas will help me be extremely successful!
Aw, yay! I am so happy to hear that you have been finding my ideas so helpful. Good luck with your new blog! Eb 🙂
This was good! I am just starting my blog and this really is what I need to get organized and to help me stay the course! Thanks for sharing this and for the free blog content planner!
Great to hear you found this helpful! Wishing you every success with your new blog 😀
I’ve been binge-reading your blog and have found sooo many helpful posts. This one on creating a content plan gave me a few new ideas, and thank you for the free content calendar!
That’s great to hear! I am delighted you are finding my blog so helpful 😀
Hey EB. You do indeed write very well and at a slightly higher level than most. No bragging about how much you make – good for you! I will absorb much more of your “content” – another online buzz word. I have been writing one of those “whatever I want to write about” (hobby) blogs since approx. 2012 (www.thebrewsterblock.com.) You hit all my buttons: Not much of a following – too many things (including poetry) to too few people; zero regard for SEO or niche; a lot of effort and zero income. I never tried to monetize. In my experience most of the popular blogs all write about “How to write a successful blog!” FYI I tried to reach you via Email links – there are many on your multitude of pages – and none of them seem to work. Your social links do work. So if you found that Email was too overwhelming and shut them down, they should be removed – very frustrating. Very glad you found your niche (2) and have had such success. I envy you. Nothing like doing what you love.
I just created a 2nd but it is still a work in progress – aiming more at the “silly” entertainment market.
Bruce
Hi Bruce, Thank you for your kind words about my website 😀 I am pleased you’ve been finding my advice helpful. Interesting you should say ‘In my experience most of the popular blogs all write about “How to write a successful blog!”’ Actually, the ‘blogging about blogging’ niche is notoriously hard to break into: the market is small and the competition is sky high! In fact, I still earn more from my food blog than I do this one, even though I spend a lot more time on this blog! Regarding my email links, I am a little unsure what you mean… I’ve checked several and they all work – and they are all correctly formatted as mailto links (mailto:eb@productiveblogging.com). Can you advise me which ones you have tried that are not correctly formatted, so I can fix them? I can’t find a single one that isn’t working! Thanks, Eb 🙂
1st lesson in blogging – learn to spell your name correctly and CHECK IT!
Haha – happens to the best of us!